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Is Unai Emery ‘irrelevant’ at Arsenal without the right players?

We all know that Tony Adams (quite rightly) is a legend at Arsenal as a player, although his managerial credentials may leave a little to be desired, and he has been known to say a few daft things in his time.

Well he has now given an interview where he reckons that Unai Emery, as the new head coach, is ‘irrelevant’ unless Ivan Gazidis’ new team don’t come up with the right players in the transfer market.

Adams said: “Your head coach is irrelevant. You are only as good as your recruitment. It’s all about getting the right players in this game. We’re going to have two see if the guys Ivan Gazidis has brought in are good in that market.

“Ivan Gazidis never had to make a decision but now he’s having to. He’s let a lot of people go. He realises it’s not been good enough and now maybe he’s doing something about it. I think these people need to be more accountable, step up and do their stuff.”

If most comments on JustArsenal are to be believed, it is obvious that who the coach is at Arsenal is extremely important, which is why everyone campaigned so long to get rid of Wenger! The coach is the one who picks the team, motivates the players, and decides the tactics to overcome the opposition. In fact you may say that the players are ‘irrelevant’ without the man in charge to make them play as a team!

Well for the first time i somehow agree with tony of course its not irrelevant who the manager is, but he said its irrelevant as long as the incoming players are useless and thats true, i mean we have got good players but with the we cannot keep up with the depth of manu man city etc. of course you can argue with leicester but that was a one-off.. those who argue with leicester just have no plan.. in studies for example there are always some examples which are wide off of the average mean and they are pretty useless results one has to compare to the mean and in 99% of the situations the club with more depth and quality players (which correlates extremely/strongly with the spending power/pulling power) wins the league.. so lets be honest.. with good tactics we can compete with liverpool and spuds and nowadays chelsea but as for league titles maybe we can win one every 5 years or so but to be the dominating team in the PL is almost impossible.. just some CL/PL wins here and there with some form and luck going for us..

Agreed – any ‘average’ can only be arrived at by including extremes throughout a spectrum. So talking averages is only ever an imprecise general guide.

It’s a bit like those pointless statistics that ‘X hasn’t beaten Y since 1980’ which ignore Y being in a different division half the time and of course the players of each team changing fundamentally every couple of years. Just what is being compared = answer ‘Nothing’ It’s a whole load of waffle.

He might make a slight difference,but the problem is the teams that finished above us are really getting there business done already ,just look at Liverpool and what they are doing in the transfer market ,while we look like are usual selfs signing are usual players .i just don’t see a change which we were told was going to be happening .do the board not realise that we were so behind last season ,and them teams are strengthening even more now
I hope I’m wrong but I don’t see us improving any more than last season ,unless we sign a few top draw players

The manager. A different approach could change the current players’ performance… or not. Ranieri came to Leicester with different idea and it worked well for his first Leicester season at Premier League, until his opponents figured out his strategy

Having said that, it would be better if the new manager able to get players that are suitable for his system. Klopp inherited Rodgers’ players and he is gradually bringing his type of players

Both of course.
It’s a myth that Unai will have
no say over player recruitment.
He will have discussions with Sven, Raul and Ivan.
Sven will learn what kind of players Unai likes
and will bear that in mind in his searches.
There will be a sharing of information whereas Wenger
was judge, jury* and executioner for 14 years.
*Judge,Jury not Judge Judy 🙂

The most important thing and only thing that matters is the philosophy the club adopt. You can spend trillions or get the best coaching staff, it’s all down to philosophy which in turn creates a certain perception.
A club spending millions all the time creates a perception of a strong team, but in most instances that team performs well due to the tactics which suit the team and a few individuals who are usually surprise performers that season.
I mean look at the ups and downs of Chelsea, Man Utd and Spurs.

What I’m trying to say is that we as Arsenal fans are being unreasonable for expecting the same story we’ve seen under Wenger. Emery will bring in a different way of doing things, which will change the perception of our team. We might be great we might be bad, but we will definitely be different.
I guess it will take us a while to get over our pessimistic and defeatist mentally we often have towards our team and overall season

It will be quite a site when certain players we’ve been writing off start performing under Emery. I honestly didn’t like Xhaka, but I watched some of our matches last season and the critism was uncalled for, he’s a pretty decent player it’s just that a few early mistakes he made when he started playing for us gave us this overly exaggerated negative perception of his overall performances, it’s probably due to the fact that we had high expectations of him turning into our new Pat Vieira. Honestly watch our matches last season and you’ll see he is far better than what we think of him, hell Iwobi has been atrocious and ineffective but some of us Africans fight tooth and nail for him not to be critised.

The premiership is full of pretty decent players … Just not at the top … And if arsenal are to recover the glory days pretty decent ain’t the route forward …neither Ramsey or xhaka are good enough for a starting 11 vying to challenge for european titles .. If they r not willing to be bench players they should be moved on … Don’t know enough about Uruguayan but World Cup might be indication … We need pace up front that’s for sure

Viera is a dm who transform to be cm (box to box), that why he playing a side gilberto who playing as pure dm.
Xhaka is a cm who force to playing as dpl without a dm as his patner.
Buy a pure dm, and put xhaka as cm, we will see the different

@CannonSpike
I don’t like the idea of midfielders occupying both wings. We need specialist, tricky, flair wingers who can make themselves a nuisance to defenders like Sane and Sterling do, getting past their markers and driving dangerous balls across the goal line for Aubameyang to stick his foot in. As for Bellerin and Xhaka, all I want to see from them next season is their backsides permanently nailed onto the bench. Those two are exactly everything wrong with Arsenal.

I think we’re being dramatic with those two. Arsenal Last season played with poor tactics and strategies mixed with lack of motivation. Let’s see what those two perform next season under new tactics, strategies and motivations

I’m not sure although we do need to get a move on, signing a 34 right back and a 30-year-old CB isn’t inspiring is it. If Wenger was still here we would all be criticising him for exactly the same things

In England it’s the Pr-oil-mier League
In German it’s the Bayerndesliga.
In France it’s QuatarPari.
In Italy its Juventus A . In Spain it’s the Twoliga.
A few teams at the top and the rest relegation candidates.
Time for a quantum shift.
A 40 team European league comprising four ten team conferences.
Each team plays all the other 39 teams once.
Top 2 in each conference qualify for straight q/f then semi, then final.
No more league or Champions league for the top teams.
Maximum of 42 matches which is far less than the 50 games presently
required to play a league programme and win the Champions league.
Bring it on 🙂

Great idea but how will it be decided who plays home and who plays away? Flip of a coin? I guarantee Barcelona will play 35 out of its 40 games at Camp Nou! I feel a salary cap and maybe a spending cap should be put in place to prevent the dominance of the few rich teams over the rest. Currently as it stands, it is increasingly dawning on me we have very little chance to ever win the EPL while City, Chelsea and Man utd exist. Has that affected my interest in football? Certainly. Has it affected the fans in Germany and Italy who watch Bayern and Juventus dutifully win the league every year? Probably.

A salary cap would work wonders to even the playing field. BUT, it would never be enforceable, as it is against the principle of free choice and would be defeated straightaway in court were it ever introduced. That is precisely why it has never been introduced. But for the inconvenience of how CORPORATE capitalism works we could greatly improve many things in football, other team sports and elsewhere in life. To be clear , I do believe in capitalism but only in honest and ethical capitalism , which is virtually entirely absent in top level football. BUT TO INTRODUCE ETHICAL CAPITALISM WE NEED ETHICAL AND HONEST PEOPLE TO MAKE KEY DECISIONS. Can anyone name even half a dozen at World or European decision making level? No, nor can I!

I don’t agree. You only have to look at Leicester under Ranieri. Yes there were a couple of astute signings, not that they were recognised at the time, and two players in Vardy and Mahrez who both had the season of their lives.

It’ll be interesting with who gets blamed for the flops, the guy who bought them or the coach not getting the best out of them. In some cases it might be clear, but others will be in a grey area. Mourinho gets stick for not developing attacking players, Wenger got blamed for everything, but rarely will you see a head of recruitment in the firing line if at all.

I think Tony Adams has an issue with Arsenal I haven’t heard anything positive from him in a while. He was a great player but below average coach who resents not being given a job at the club. To say that the head coach is irrelevant is such a stupid statement, he is just trying to be provocative. He should try telling that to his old boss George Graham, one of the best head coaches we have ever had, who made good players like Dixon, Winterburn, Bould and Adams himself, into great players.

He assumes that Emery has no say in what of player he wants and I think he is wrong. So at least give him a bit of time before damning him as irrelevant.

You beat me to it, that is pretty much what I was going to say, the only thing I can add is Adams is a club legend at Arsenal, but every coaching role he’s taken on has been an unmitigated disaster, that’s why as soon as he starts talking, I stop listening.

Big Tony will always be a legend for his performances but not for his brain, away from the field. A great guy, big heart but rightly not given a position at top level football. To say that the head coach is irrelevant with ANY set of players is plain daft. A shame his brain does not match up to his heart. Wenger, had he possessed any coaching ability AT ALL for defenders, would not have been so hounded out by fans who could not stand to see shamboilic so called “defenders” constantly embarrassing our club. And themselves, though you sometimes had to wonder if they even cared. I believe that is all behind us now but we will not know for sure until August, I guess.